The Most Idiotic Christian Practice?

Would it be priests raping young boys and having other priests cover it up so they could go to a new parish and rape new boys?

Would it be pastors who use their position of authority to sexually molest girls and women in their own congregation?

Would it be the pulpit pimps who financially rape stupid people with ridiculous ‘promises’ of wealth if only the sheeple give them their money?

Or could it be the parents who abuse their children to death by refusing them modern medicine and instead allow their children to die because they tried to pray them healthy?

Whatever the ‘worst’ is, the stupidest, most idiotic practice in Christianity is probably the sheer lunacy of snake handling. You see, in the examples above you put other people at risk or abuse other people, but in snake handling you just put yourself at risk–though to be fair, by modeling this for your children you put them at risk since you socialize them into the same stupidity.

OK, it’s all insane stupidity that cannot be gradated.

Anyways, in this video members of a church in Georgia handle rattlesnakes and drink strychnine because of their foolish literal reading of the Bible.

INFO: ignore the creepy nightmare-inducing old man at the beginning. Relevant video starts at 0:45

Sweet baby Jesus! What is wrong with these people? I like the part where the guy picks up the deadly snake, and then starts dancing around with it! Yes, this deadly poisonous snake is not deadly enough, let’s dance around and shake it, and really piss it off…

For more on snake-handlers, and those who have died from this idiotic practice:

Yeah, from an “idiotic” perspective, it is right up there, even if there are more morally reprehensible practices.

Really good book if you are interested in reading more about this practice:
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia
by Dennis Covington.-Amazon Link-

It is a well-written story by a guy with ancestral roots in Appalachian snake handling religion. What is interesting is how he really gets to know snake handlers while seeking to learn more about them. And what is even more interesting is that he, as an agnostic I think, starts to get kind of drawn into the religion, almost like his mind is divided and he sees himself getting drawn in and studies it. At least that is how I remember it, it’s been a few years since I read it.

“Sweet baby Jesus! What is wrong with these people? I like the part where the guy picks up the deadly snake, and then starts dancing around with it! Yes, this deadly poisonous snake is not deadly enough, let’s dance around and shake it, and really piss it off…”

Yes, the Sand Mountain book is a good one. What I don’t understand is why they interpret Mark 16:18 to mean poisonous snakes. The Greeks doesn’t say or require that. Pick up a garter snake or bull snake.

You need to read volume 7 in the Firefox series about Appalachian religions.